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The Thing
thumb|300px The Thing (known as Yuusei Kara no Buutai X: Episode II in Japan) is a 2002 third-person shooter/survival horror video game developed by Computer Artworks and published under the "Black Label Games" banner, a collaboration between Universal Interactive and Konami. It was released for PlayStation 2 on September 10, 2002 in North America, on September 20 in Europe and on February 27, 2003 in Japan. It was also released in North America for Windows and Xbox, on August 20 and September 3, 2002, respectively. Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance versions were planned, but were cancelled early in production. The game is a sequel to John Carpenter's 1982 film, The Thing (which is retroactively a sequel of Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s 2011 film, also entitled The Thing) and follows the story of Captain Blake, a member of a U.S. Special Forces team sent to the Antarctic outpost featured in the film to determine what has happened to the research team. The game was endorsed by John Carpenter, who appears in an uncredited cameo. The Thing received positive reviews and sold very well. A sequel was in the early stages of development, but was cancelled when Computer Artworks closed down in 2004. Gameplay The basic gameplay in The Thing is that of a standard third-person shooter; the player character can run and shoot, strafe, crouch, interact with the environment, interact with NPCs and use items, such as flashlights, fire extinguishers or flares. The player also has the option to enter first-person mode for more accurate targeting during combat. When in first-person mode, the character cannot move except to side-step a little to the left and right. Weaponry includes pistols, grenades, sniper rifles, flamethrowers, shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles, grenade launchers and fixed heavy machine guns. Other items which can be found during the game are health packs, explosives and ammunition, portable blood test-kits and adrenaline injections. thumb|Blake fights a boss in The Thing. The HUD shows his health (red bar), his currently selected weapon and ammo count, and his left hand item (in this case flame grenades). Enemies come in three main varieties. Scuttlers are small Things formed from the limbs and appendages of infected personnel. They are fast but weak, and can be killed simply by shooting. Walkers are larger and much stronger. To kill them, the player must weaken them using gunfire before then using the flamethrower to finish them off as only fire can completely kill Walkers. Bosses are larger and much more powerful than Walkers, and although each one requires a specific strategy to defeat, the principle is the same; weaken it with gunfire before burning it. One of the main features of gameplay is the inclusion of multiple NPCs who join the player character (Blake) throughout the game. At any one time, the player can control up to four characters; Blake and three NPCs. There are three types of NPC in the game; engineers, soldiers and medics. Engineers can repair fuse boxes, which control locked doors, computers and save points. Soldiers have more health, are better shots than engineers or medics, and are thus more suited to combat. Medics are capable of healing both Blake and any other injured NPCs, and carry unlimited health packs. Blake can issue basic commands to each member of the team, such as ordering them to follow him, ordering them remain where they are, ordering them to give him their weapon, and, in the case of engineers, ordering them to fix a fuse box. NPC AI is determined primarily by the "Fear/trust system". In the trust system, the player must ensure that the NPCs will follow Blake's orders and join him in combat. To do so, they must make sure that the NPC trusts Blake and does not suspect him of being a Thing. NPCs have four levels of trust; red, amber, green and 100%. Red means they are convinced Blake is a Thing and will attack him. Amber means they are not sure if he is a Thing. They won't attack him, but they won't follow his orders. Green means they trust him and will follow his orders. 100% means they have complete faith in him, will follow his orders, and even if he attacks another NPC, they will support him. To gain NPCs trust, Blake can give them weapons and ammo, heal them, put himself at risk to protect them or use a blood test kit on himself to prove he is not a Thing. Actions which deplete trust include accidentally shooting teammates, taking away teammate's weapons or ammo, or pointing a weapon at one of them for a sustained period of time. The fear system dictates how scared a given NPC is. There are three levels of fear; normal, scared and "Crack-up". When an NPC enters "Crack-up" mode, Blake has only a limited amount of time to reduce their fear level, or the NPC will kill themselves, attack the squad, attack the environment, or die of a heart attack. Each NPC responds differently to different surroundings; medics tend to scare easier than soldiers for example, but generally, fear can be increased by entering rooms covered in blood, entering dark locations, finding particularly disfigured corpses, being attacked by multiple enemies and being able to hear but not see enemies. When an NPC is scared, it affects their performance; soldiers become less accurate, engineers take longer to repair fuse boxes and medics don't heal characters as quickly. Blake can reduce fear by giving NPCs adrenaline, topping up their ammo, moving away from particular locations or successfully defeating enemies. The game also features an infection system, which determines whether or not an NPC is infected by the Thing. Although most NPCs are scripted to transform into a Thing at specific points in the game, they can also be infected at any time prior to this. When the team comes under attack by enemies, the possibility of infection is based upon a probability system whereby any teammate who comes into direct contact with an enemy can be infected. Although infection does not alter their behavior, it will quickly result in them turning into a Thing. Plot The game begins at U.S. Outpost 31 in Antarctica, some time after the events of the film. A team of U.S. special forces have arrived to investigate both the U.S. camp and the nearby Norwegian camp. Captain J.F. Blake (voiced by Per Solli) is the leader of Beta Team, who are investigating the U.S. camp, whilst Alpha Team investigate the Norwegian camp under the command of Captain Pierce. Both teams are under the overall command of Colonel Whitley (William B. Davis) who is in communication with them via radio. Whilst investigating the Outpost 31, Beta Team soon discover the small spacecraft made by the Blair-Thing in the film and the tape recorder with a message from R.J. MacReady, describing how nobody trusts anybody anymore and that everyone is very tired. They then find information detailing how the base has been infiltrated by an extraterrestrial lifeform that is capable of imitating the physical appearance and characteristics of any living organism. Whilst searching, they also find the body of Childs, one of the two survivors at the end of the film, who has died from hypothermia. The film's other survivor, MacReady, is nowhere to be found. Under orders from Whitley, Beta Team set up C-4 explosives throughout the facility, which are detonated remotely, completely destroying the outpost. Whilst the rest of Beta Team are airlifted to safety, Blake heads to the Norwegian camp to locate and reinforce Alpha Team, with whom all contact has been lost. He discovers that Alpha Team have been attacked and scattered by an unknown enemy, which is soon revealed to be a hoard of "scuttlers", small limbs and appendages of much larger Things. Eventually Blake finds Pierce. However, Pierce doesn't trust anyone, believing everyone to be infected and demanding that Blake agrees to a blood test. Blake does so, proving himself to be uninfected, and he and Pierce set out to find a way to reestablish communication with Whitley. However, they are soon separated, and with no other choice, Blake continues on, finding the radio room, but discovering that someone has stolen the radio and fled into a nearby warehouse. En route to the warehouse, Blake encounters Pierce in the observatory. However, Pierce has become infected, and rather than allow himself to turn into a Thing, he shoots himself in the head. Blake continues to pursue the man with the radio, eventually discovering that he is a Thing. Blake kills him, and takes the radio. Moving on, he enters the "Pyron" sub-facility beneath the Norwegian base, learning of a company called Gen-Inc., who placed a research team under the command of Dr. Sean Faraday (John Carpenter, in an uncredited role). Gen-Inc. had been conducting experiments on the Things when their team was infected, and now only a few survivors remain within the facility. Blake rescues Faraday and attempts to leave. However, he then encounters Whitley, who shoots him with a tranquilizer gun and reveals to Faraday that he has infected himself with the Thing gene, claiming it to be controllable and that he is the living proof as to its capability as a weapon. When Faraday sets about attempting to eradicate the Thing virus, Whitley kills him. Blake awakes in the now abandoned "Strata" research facility. After escaping his confinement, he unearths a government conspiracy whereby Gen-Inc. isolated a microbiological form of the Thing called the "Cloud virus", which was intended for use in biological warfare. However, the Thing eventually infected everyone at the facility. Blake learns that Whitley was in charge of the entire operation and has injected himself with a strain of the virus known as "Cloud Virus B4". Blake fights his way through the research facility, battling numerous black ops under Whitley's command, as well as many Things. He learns that Whitley plans to distribute the Thing virus around the world using a fleet of airplanes, however, he is able to destroy them before they take off. Eventually, Blake confronts Whitley himself. He sets him on fire, but Whitley is undamaged. He explains that an airlift team is on its way and when its arrives, he will begin global exposure. Whitley flees further into the base, pursued by Blake. At the partly excavated site of the Thing's spaceship from the film, Whitley transforms into a massive Thing creature. Blake encounters a helicopter pilot, who helps him defeat the Whitley-Thing. As the helicopter flies away from the base, the pilot reveals himself to be R.J. MacReady. Development In 2000, when Universal Interactive began to go through their back catalog of feature films looking for potential video game franchises, they quickly decided that one of the most lucrative intellectual properties was the 1982 cult film from John Carpenter, The Thing, based on the 1938 John W. Campbell short story "Who Goes There?", and which had already been filmed by Howard Hawks in 1951 as The Thing from Another World. The ambiguous ending to the 1982 film was particularly attractive and they felt that exploring what happens after the events of the film could be suited to a video game. Based upon Computer Artworks' 2000 game Evolva, Universal asked them if they would be interested in developing the project. In their pitch to Universal, Computer Artworks reskinned a level from Evolva with an Antarctic theme and a Thing-like creature as a boss fight. The pitch was strong enough to impress Universal, and the deal was signed. Drawing inspiration from Aliens, the 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Half-Life and Area 51 conspiracy theories, Computer Artworks began work on the game in January 2001. The game was first announced on September 20, 2000, when Universal Interactive and Konami confirmed the game would be a sequel to the 1982 film, and would be released for "next generation consoles", of which only the Xbox was confirmed, as well as the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance (although both Game Boy versions were ultimately cancelled). On January 16, 2001, Computer Artworks announced the game would also be released for PC, with a release date slated for mid-2002. The game was first shown at Universal Interactive "Gamer's Day" on August 13, where it was confirmed that it would be coming to PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC. A non-playable demo was shown, and a Q&A session was held with the developers. Taking place a few months after the events of the film, Universal revealed details of the fear/trust and infection systems, which they claimed would form an integral aspect of the gameplay. A playable demo for the PlayStation 2 was released on March 25, 2002. In an interview with GameSpot on April 1, Universal Interactive producer Peter Wanat explained that "The trust-fear dynamic was born out of the film and the simple fact that we needed to give the main character NPCs to interact with. That whole not knowing who is human and who is "the thing" was a big part of the movie and worked for the game really well." Wanat also cited games such as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Grand Theft Auto III and Max Payne as influences. However, he stated that "The gameplay is more action horror. We have built on all the elements of survival horror games in the past, but what we wanted to do was get away from the slow "plodding for hours" style of gameplay, which made us more likely to fall asleep than wet our pants from fear. So we made the shooting aspects more frenzied in order to really wake the player up. So when we do slow the pace back down, your sense that any minute it might get hairy again really starts to mess with you." The game was next shown at E3 2002 in May. In July, Universal released a 90% complete playable demo. [[image:The Thing Trust.jpg|thumb|The trust system in The Thing. In this screenshot, Carter does not trust Blake, and will not follow him (top), perform an action for him (left) or give him a weapon (bottom). The only option available to the player is to give Carter a weapon (right). Upon doing so, Carter will trust Blake, and the other options will become available.]] Speaking in 2014, the game's director, William Latham, reiterated Wanat's claims that the fear/trust and infection systems came from a desire to reproduce a strong element from the film; "It was early days for squad-based games, and the fear, trust and infection mechanic was quite innovative for the time. It came from very early meetings where we all watched the film to come up with brand identifiers. We decided there should be a novel AI element that mimicked what happened within the film: you never know who's going to turn." Also speaking in 2014, lead designer Andre Curtis said "We always planned The Thing to be more action-horror, and having had some experience in squad-based gaming with Evolva, it seemed right to have the game as squad-based so we could support the core ideas of fear, trust and infection. It was more about the tension of not knowing what was going to happen next - was the guy next to you going to try and shoot you, go insane or morph into a freakish beast with thrashing tentacles?" Originally the game was to be more open world based, with the possibility that each NPC could turn into a Thing at any moment completely randomized. Curtis also hoped that the player could get to the end of the game with many, perhaps all, of the NPCs still alive. However, this kind of open-endedness proved impossible to implement, and ultimately, NPC characters had to be scripted to change into Things at specific points, irrespective of what the player does. This led to a much criticized aspect of the game; the player can test an NPC to find he is human only for him to change into a Thing mere second later. Lead programmer Diarmid Campbell explains "the infection system was conceived as a simulation that had the capacity to play out differently each time you played the game, leading to potential replayability. However, the game was also very story-led with set-pieces that required specific characters getting infected at certain times. These two aspects were constantly pulling in different directions. I think we ended up with a slightly messy compromise with good story elements and a genuinely new mechanic but also some logical inconsistencies which, ironically, became glaringly obvious if you played the game more than once." Music The song "After Me", performed by American rock band Saliva, is heard over the end credits of the game. The song is taken from their second studio album, Every Six Seconds. Planned sequel A sequel went into development after the first game proved a critical and commercial success, but it was cancelled when Computer Artworks closed down in 2004. Reception The Thing received generally favorable reviews on all three platforms. The PlayStation 2 version holds aggregate scores of 80.27% on GameRankings, based on fifty reviews, and 78 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on twenty-seven reviews. The Xbox version holds scores of 77.16%, based on forty-four reviews, and 78 out of 100, based on twenty-one reviews, and the PC version holds scores of 77.33%, based on twenty-five reviews, and 77 out of 100, based on nineteen reviews. Eurogamer's Kristan Reed was unimpressed, scoring the PlayStation 2 version 5 out of 10. He called the trust/fear system "a fairly straightforward system that's nowhere near as much of a neat gameplay innovation as the hype had some people believe ... As a squad based game it would work far better if you ever had to care a great deal for anyone's survival. As it is, most of the team seem to split off once a level's over (or turn into aliens at pre-determined moments during it), so you're left merely using each NPC as a means of progression." He was also critical of the graphics, which he argued "look old school, with bad texturing, uninteresting particle effects, and vanilla architecture." He concluded that "If you can pick up The Thing cheap you won't be too disappointed; it's by no means a bad game, but it's all the more disappointing thanks to the fact that it could and should have been brilliant. As it stands, it pales in comparison to any number of quality releases that have hit the shelves recently." GameSpy's Tom Chick was also disappointed with the PC version, scoring it 3 out of 5, and writing "The Thing starts out strong, but it's the sort of game you don't have to feel bad about not finishing. Of course, you're paying for a full game, so if dollar value is your main criteria, you might be better off renting John Carpenter's movie, reading the original short story, and then having a laugh at the walking carrot in the 1951 version." Tom Ham was more impressed with the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions, scoring them both 4 out of 5, and writing "not only is the game a solid action-adventure frenzy, it also manages to tell a tale that is truly chilling. Combined with topnotch graphics, incredible use of sound, and a very cool trust/fear interface, The Thing manages to do what so many movie licensed game have failed to do -- succeed." GameSpot was impressed with all three versions. Erik Wolpaw scored the PC version 7.7 out of 10, and although he was very critical of the trust/fear system and the controls, he concluded that "The Thing is kind of short, it's not especially effective at making you feel afraid, its most intriguing gameplay elements are somewhat extraneous, and it suffers from a wonky control scheme. Yet, thanks to some high production values and consistently interesting action scenes, The Thing rises above these flaws. It could have been great, but in light of the checkered history of movie-licensed games, being good at all is a pretty impressive achievement." Ryan Mac Donald scored the PlayStation 2 version 8.4 out of 10, writing "when you look at everything the game offers in terms of its gameplay, presentation, and story, it's hard not to appreciate The Thing whether you're a fan of the film it's based on or just a fan of the survival horror genre in general. The Thing is a very solid game that could have been done better in some ways, but not by much." He also scored the Xbox version 8.4 out of 10, writing "the Xbox version is the best of the three, combining sharp graphics similar to those found in the PC version with the superior console-style control found in the PlayStation 2 version." IGN praised all three versions of the game. Steve Polak scored the PC version 8.5 out of 10, writing "The Thing is for the most part an immersive and enjoyable game. The visuals and sound are top notch and the sense of desperation you feel when you are stuck outside and about to succumb to the elements or being hunted by packs of the foul creatures is very real. The squad based elements and the way you keep your men from losing their minds also adds to the depth of the play experience." Douglass C. Perry scored the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions 8.3 out of 10. Although he was critical of the scripted nature of the infection system, he concluded that "The Thing takes some time to get into, and it may be a little frustrating for some gamers. But I'm quite sure that once it's given a chance, The Thing won't disappoint. The deeper you play, the more satisfying and challenging it becomes, and the more it draws you in. The Thing is well-paced, designed with an excellent variety of levels ... Everything is consistent with the movie, the theme of which has been handled with exquisite care and thought. With the exception of the blood test goofs and the rather thin storyline, The Thing warrants your time and money." 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